Welcome to OVAE Connection

OVAE Connection is a new newsletter from the Office of Vocational and Adult Education (OVAE) of the U.S. Department of Education. This is our first issue. We are sending it to all of those who received the former Thursday Notes, Up-to-Date with DATE, and Community College Compendium. We will do our best to provide "news you can use." We recognize that not all news will be usable for each reader, but we will try to ensure that each news item has some potential utility for at least a segment of our audience. Articles will come from OVAE staff involved in career and technical education; adult education; community colleges; and research, evaluation, technical assistance, and dissemination. We also want to feature articles that let those in the field know what others in the field are doing that has proven to be of value. Please send us information that others should know about what is working. And we want your feedback about what is useful and what is not. Please give us your constructive suggestions. Thank you!

OVAE and ED's Office for Civil Rights (OCR) will partner with Maryland's Department of Education to help states and districts prepare learners for high-skill, high-wage, and high-demand non-traditional careers that meet the challenges of a global society. This national-level partnership will identify resources and practices that have increased participation and completion of underrepresented students in CTE programs leading to non-traditional careers. It also will identify data tools necessary to measure and track results. The project will have two phases.

In phase one, the partners will develop a clearinghouse of replicable strategies, carefully selected promising practices, resources and data, based on work already begun in Maryland, for states and districts to use in addressing the under-representation of women and girls in CTE programs that lead to high-wage, high-demand careers, such as engineering and information technology. In phase two, the partners will expand the initiative to include other groups that are underrepresented in non-traditional fields such as male learners, learners with limited-English proficiency, and learners with disabilities in CTE programs that are critical to the US and global societies.

Anthes Appointed as Rhode Island's Administrator of Adult Education and GED

Deborah Anthes has been appointed as Rhode Island's administrator of adult education and GED. She will be taking on some of the responsibilities previously handled by Johan Uvin who is currently serving as a senior policy advisor for OVAE Assistant Secretary Dann-Messier. Anthes worked with Uvin for four years in the state's Office of Adult and Career and Technical Education. Prior to that, she was employed by Dorcas Place Adult and Family Literacy Center in Providence for five years. During that time, she held the positions of director of information and evaluation services as well as assistant vice president of programs.

Colorado Students Trade Immediate Diploma for A Year's Tuition and Credit

According to an article in the April 14 Denver Post, and as verified by the Colorado Community College System, 277 Colorado high school seniors will receive a year of college courtesy of the state. For this to occur, two things must happen. First, high school seniors who are ready to graduate and who have already earned at least 12 college credits by the spring of their senior year, must elect not to receive their high school diplomas on time. Second, the seniors' high schools must have established an arrangement with one of Colorado's public colleges for the student to attend it for a "fifth year" of high school. While students have been earning college credit in Colorado, as elsewhere, through advanced high school courses, this program will allow more Colorado students to earn college credits, to earn more of them than previously was possible. 2010 is the first year of the innovative program under state auspices. In the past, a small number of Colorado high schools that serve predominantly low-income students have escrowed diplomas and enrolled students in community college, according to the article. The State estimates that the program will cost $1.7 million this year.

The National Research Center for Career and Technical Education (NRCCTE)

The National Research Center for Career and Technical Education (NRCCTE) recently released Programs of Study: Year 2 Joint Technical Report. This report (1) summarizes the literature on previous initiatives that share similar components of Programs of Study (POS), (2) reviews the evidence on the effects of career and technical education participation on engagement, achievement, and transition, (3) describes the center's three studies about POS, and (4) offers early observations about the implementation of the four Perkins-mandated components of POS. To receive the NRCCTE newsletter, studies, and alerts about upcoming events and studies you may sign up at http://www.nrccte.org.